Wild World

In the mid-late 60’s and early 70’s when this country was going through the Hippie Era, about as close as I got to involvement in it was living on the Big Sur coast, growing a mustache, having frizzy hair and long sideburns, and owning some 33 rpm records by Cat Stevens, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. The appearances were truly deceiving because I was a campaign worker for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, read everything Ayn Rand wrote, drove a BMW, and almost enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps so I could serve my country by fighting the Communists in Viet Nam. I was also a strong Christian.

I realize it might be a stretch to find any congruity in the above characteristics, but I think there was some. Even then I was becoming more and more concerned with the evil in the world and wanted to do something to help people avoid what I could see could be their personal downfall by being blindsided by it and by aggregation of many victims, the downfall of our nation. The drug culture and ‘free love’ (i.e., unbridled sex) were prime examples of one type of evil all around me.

So I became a teacher. I also joined a new Church.

Although I was stretching the context somewhat, some lyrics in Cat Stevens’ song Wild World caught my fancy then and I still remember them:

You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breaking my heart in two . . .
But if you want to leave take good care
Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware

Oh, [children, children] it's a wild world . . .

It still is a “wild world,” and will get far worse before it gets better. There is a lot of bad out there and we must beware. But there is hope, for “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.”

Many haven’t been as wary or prepared as they should and have been badly hurt because they didn’t realize how vulnerable they were. There is evil in the world—evil men, evil organizations, evil combinations and political and religious philosophies—yes, there are “evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days” and there will yet be many casualties. The casualties in the Middle East have been often physical. The casualties in our own land have been, so far, mostly spiritual.

Except for occasional vociferous outbursts of rhetoric, especially in political campaign years, one of the evils in the Western World we must be alert to and wary of is that old and insidious one of “Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; … yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines…and their works shall be in the dark….” And many who follow this line of nonsense will perish. It is happening all around us.

As a Christian, one who is a disciple of the one true Way out of this ‘wild world’ I could do no better than reiterate the words of the Apostle Paul: “Put on the whole armour of God.” Learn what it is and where to get it and put it on every day, and make sure it is tightly fastened. In order to survive we will need it.